


A Crack in the Mirror

by caughtinkhanded



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Post-Series, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:31:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2323829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caughtinkhanded/pseuds/caughtinkhanded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andromeda Tonks has lost more than most as a result of the war. But she is forced to look that fact in the face every day in the mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crack in the Mirror

Andromeda Tonks stared in the mirror with swollen, tear blurred eyes. All she wanted to do was smash the mirror. Watch the surface crack and break into a thousand pieces. And then grind those remnants into dust and powder.

She doesn't want to see herself. It's too painful. If she could she would never see her own reflection again. It would be easier that way.

She forced her eyes up to her reflection. Her dark (not as dark as her sister's) hair was too wild today. (Too much like Bel- like somebody that she used to know's) Tousled curls sat unsettled around her face. The lack of food consumed over the past week had caused her cheekbones to begin to protrude sharply. Her eyes looked darker then normal, overly haunted.

She blinked back the stinging tears painfully.

The haunting image of her lingered teasingly in her eyes. The face that she used to seek out at the dinner table. The face that she had followed into their mother's secret garden (that were explicitly forbidden, but "rules are for those beneath us, Andy"). The face that had stopped representing love and friendship and started representing hate and darkness. But she could never be rid of that face. It was too similar to her own.

For not the first time, she desperately wished for her daughter's gift.

Her dark eyes fell upon the letter that had sparked it all. "It is believed that Mrs. Nympadora Lupin was killed in action by Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange." The letter had been signed personally by Nymphadora's friend, Kingsley Shacklebolt. The words stabbed at every fiber of her being.

Every one was gone. Her darling girl, gone. By her demon of a sister. Her son-in-law, the poor boy, dead. And Ted, her rock, her everything, he was gone without so much as a proper goodbye. Every morning she woke up, expecting to see his bright smiling face, and every morning she was crushed, again and again.

A lone tear slid down her aristocratic cheek. She was so tired. So, so, so tired. Exhausted in fact. There was no point in anything. Her world had come crashing down barely a week ago when a disheveled young man covered in cuts and bruises with unruly black hair that threw her into the past had knocked on the down, a solemn expression on his young face.

She couldn't handle anything anymore. She couldn't do it. She couldn't look in the mirror and not be reminded of her sister. And of the awful deeds that godforsaken woman had done. Including ripping her daughter away from her too soon.

Then a wail echoed through the house and Andromeda was reminded of why she needed to push on.


End file.
